In Touch with True Emotions

In Touch with True Emotions

Our bellies can be wonderful monitors of our emotional health and the truth can always be found there.

So often, emotions that we long to express get stored in our bodies instead. The space where this most often happens is in our bellies. Rather than telling people, our even ourselves, the way we truly feel, we may stuff our true feelings deep inside of us, where they take up space until we are ready to let them go. Stuffing our feelings in our bellies may feel like the "safe" response, since we then don't really have to deal with our emotions. Yet, doing so can actually be detrimental to our emotional well-being and physical health.

One way to connect with and release your emotions is to do a focused exercise with your stomach area. Take a moment to center yourself with some deep breathing and quiet meditation, relaxing your body fully and turning off the chatter in your brain. With your right hand on your stomach, tell yourself three times: "Please reveal to me my true emotions." Listen for the answers. Repeat the exercise as many times as you would like, allowing yourself to drop deeper into your body each time. Notice any physical response in the stomach area, whether you have a warm, relaxed feeling in the middle of your body or if you feel tight knots in response to any emotions that do come up. You may even want to write down any answers that come to you. Remember that the body doesn't lie.

Releasing our pent up feelings from our bellies can prevent disease and allow us to live more authentic and expressive lives. Sometimes, if too much emotional energy builds up inside of us, a blowout can result that can cause discomfort. You can help to alleviate this compression by doing the same exercise and adding sound to your emotional release. The more guttural the sounds released through your mouth, the more emotions you are likely letting go. Releasing your emotions from your belly doesn't have to be painful and hard; rather, it can be organic and effortless. It's important not to judge whatever comes up for you. We tend to stuff our feelings in our bellies when we are ashamed of them or not ready to express them. There is nothing wrong with having feelings, whatever they may be. You can't help your feelings; if anything, you can help yourself by acknowledging the truth of your emotions so you can set yourself free.

DailyOM Course Spotlight

by Jannine Murray

If you are a woman I know you want one thing: To love yourself and love your body, inside and out. But how? With this 21 day course you will invite the most powerful force in the universe into your daily practice: Love! It is only with self-love that you will transform, lose weight and heal the root issue of your body's weight gain and imbalance for good! You do not need to suffer anymore. You are a goddess! My journey to self-love hasn't been easy, but I have one motivating factor, and that is helping women like you. These last few years I have really been able to dial down to the root issues of my weight gain, hormone imbalance, cravings, emotional eating and binging, insomnia, feelings of unworthiness and shame, and pull away a lot of what was weighing me down in all my bodies -- emotional, mental, physical, spiritual and psychic. I see this as a gift, as I have now pulled all these lessons, combined them with my 15 years of experience, and a lifetime of passion, and put it all into my new 21 day body empowerment program.